


Everyone But You

by infiniteeight



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Happy Ending, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:54:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25530022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infiniteeight/pseuds/infiniteeight
Summary: Stiles travels back in time and fixes everything, only to discover that there's one thing he wishes he could have kept the same.
Relationships: Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 63
Kudos: 780
Collections: Steter Week 2020





	Everyone But You

**Author's Note:**

> You could say this was for the Steter Week July 27 visual prompt, but really I had the story idea before I saw that. That said, I only actually sat down and wrote it because Steter Week was happening, so I'm calling it part of the event. :)

Stiles thought that time travel would be more difficult.

Okay, it’s not exactly _easy_ \--there’s all of two copies of the spell in the world and it requires shit tons of power--but once he had all the ingredients the portal popped up with no problems and then it was just a matter of focusing on when he was going to and jumping in.

He also thought that unfucking the Hales’ past would be more difficult.

But it turns out that Talia is a very good alpha, and not only does she know how to do the listening for a lie thing, she’s also better at the claw thing than Peter, so it’s not that hard to explain and/or show her the shit that is coming their way. Her connections are so good that all it takes to fix everything is a couple weeks of gathering evidence and a handful of conversations. Paige lives, Gerard and Kate are executed by the hunter council (the Hales were not their first fire), and discreet eyes are set to watch other important players. Even the nogitsune and the Nemeton were handled, with the help of a couple extra druids.

Finding a way to be happy in the past was supposed to be easy. In comparison, at least.

Stiles had even told himself it would be a kind of reward for giving up his whole life to fix things. Instead of struggling with his feelings for the spree-killing, formerly insane, formerly dead, currently amoral father of his first girlfriend, Stiles could let himself fall in love with the stable, only slightly manipulative, younger version of the same man.

His heart is not cooperating.

“Stiles?” 

This Peter’s voice is wrong. There’s no edge to it. It’s full of the thoughtless confidence of someone who’s never had their world shattered. 

He sounds worried, though, so Stiles looks up from the chessboard and forces a smile. “Sorry. My mind was wandering.”

“Anything you want to talk about?” Peter offers. He smirks, and for a moment it’s almost, _almost_ right, but then he says, “I promise not to use it against you,” and there’s a self-deprecating undertone that is all wrong.

Talia had shown this Peter what the impact of his influence on Derek would have been, thanks to Stiles and the claw thing, and it had shaken him.

The real Peter, Stiles’ Peter, hadn’t liked how things had worked out, but he’d firmly believed in his choices. He’d have argued that he was trying to protect the pack, that he thought bringing Paige in would make them stronger and Derek less vulnerable. The fact that it had all gone to shit didn’t invalidate the logic--that was _results oriented thinking_.

“Nah,” Stiles says. “It’s just… timing, you know? It’s making me think about things.”

Peter frowns. “I thought the day was still a week away.”

The day that Kate would have burned the Hales. The day that started everything, even if it had taken six years to start for Stiles. “It is,” he says aloud. “But when I was deciding when to come back to, I was debating between a week before Paige and a week before the fire. It’s just got me thinking, that’s all.”

Peter nods. “Why did you pick Paige?”

Stiles shrugs. “Derek went through a lot of shit in my timeline. I kind of wanted to give him something nice for once. Plus, I figured if I was going to save everyone, I might as well save _everyone_.”

“And you did,” Peter says, smiling softly.

_Not really,_ Stiles thinks. 

Derek and Cora and Scott and all the betas and even his dad are young enough that they seem like totally different people. He can look at them and smile and think, _You’re going to be awesome, I can’t wait to see you become the people I know you can be._ They won’t be the _same_ , of course, but it still feels right.

Peter does not feel right.

Stiles didn’t save Peter. Instead he’s traded him in for this… this… watered down imitation.

And, fuck, that’s such a shitty thing to think about someone he’s become pretty friendly with over the past year, but it’s _true_. This Peter has never had to survive being burned down to nothing, has never fought his way out of a coma, has never stolen his soul back from death. This Peter’s knowledge of all the worst parts of the supernatural world is _theoretical_. He hasn’t looked into Valack’s third eye or been turned to stone by the Anuk-Ite. This Peter is soft.

It’s not like it’s a surprise. Stiles had known that Peter would be different, that Stiles would be turning aside all the events that had hardened and sharpened him. That was supposed to be a _good_ thing. 

But it turns out that all the things that made it difficult to love Peter were also all the things that made it _possible_ to love Peter. Everything they went through hardened Stiles, too. He has his own sharp edges. He and Peter had _fit_ together, even though he hadn’t wanted that to be true. 

This Peter isn’t ever going to understand him the way Stiles’ Peter had. He’s never going to have a connection with this Peter. 

Stiles swallows the lump in his throat and hopes that the tears that are pricking at his eyes don’t show. “Yeah,” he says. “I did. I saved them all.” He drops his gaze to the chessboard and tries to remember if it’s his move or not.

**_timespacerealityopenblurtwistbackwardsforwardsrealityspacetime_ **

Stiles gasps and almost falls out of his chair. His hands knock chess pieces aside as he lurches forward and grabs the table to steady himself. “What the fuck?” he gasps, because he _knows_ that feeling. That’s the feeling of the time portal opening, except that everything he’d read said that no one was aware of a timeline changing unless it was their own change. Even if someone else traveled back, Stiles should have been as oblivious as the rest of the world.

“Stiles? What’s wrong?” Peter is reaching for him.

Stiles lurches to his feet. “I have to check,” he chucks a thumb over his shoulder at the front door and turns and stumbles toward it, barely registering Peter calling for Talia behind him.

He throws the door open and almost falls off the porch because _the portal is there_ , swirling blue and purple against twilight sky. 

Stiles is halfway across the lawn to it--God knows what he’s going to do when he gets there--when someone leaps through. The portal snaps shut behind them, so close it nips off the trailing end of their coat. Stiles stops dead in his tracks, staring. “ _Peter?_ ”

Peter’s head whips around, eyes flaring blue, and Stiles’ can’t help the hope that blooms inside of him. “Stiles!” Peter’s across the lawn in an instant, gripping Stiles hard by the shoulders, smirk firmly in place. “You didn’t think I was going to let you pull this insane stunt on your own, did you?”

“I _did_ do it alone!” A horrible thought strikes Stiles. “Oh, God, it didn’t work. That’s the only way you could be here, it didn’t work!”

He’s halfway to panic when Peter gives him a shake. “Stiles. Stiles! I jumped in after you, I used the same portal, that’s how I’m here.” 

_I jumped in after you._ It’s right. The blue eyes, the time portal. _I jumped in after you._ This is the Peter who rode into the Ghost Riders’ portal even after he’d seen what it could do. This is the Peter who held onto Stiles’ keys even as he burned alive for the third time. 

Peter, _his Peter_ , stares into his eyes, and Stiles’ mind races, putting it together. “I didn’t know when you were coming back to,” Peter says. “I had to guess.”

“The same portal,” Stiles repeats. “The timeline isn’t set, the changes aren’t permanent, until the portal closes. So when you jumped in after me--”

“--it sent me into the same timeline you were building,” Peter finishes. “Except you jumped to--?”

“A week before Paige,” Stiles supplies.

Peter snorts. “I should have known. You would just have to save _everyone_.”

“Everyone but you,” Stiles says, laughing, and Peter’s brow wrinkles as he glances over Stiles’ shoulder at Talia and his younger self, staring at the two of them from the porch, and then back to Stiles. “You saved yourself.” Stiles grabs Peter and hauls him into a kiss because when the world hands you the one thing you’ve been desperately wishing for _you fucking take it._

~End~


End file.
